9/8 - Back in the office

I woke up early to try and catch an hour or two of some NFL games, which began at 12 AM JKTA. Scouring every sports channel available to me in the hotel didn't even find anyone reporting highlights - it truly is an American phenomena - so I had to settle for seeing the scores on the internet. It just isn't the same.

When I woke up this morning, I could tell it had rained over night. The windows still had fresh drops and the streets glistened with moisture. The roads were much busier on the drive in than they had been my whole trip. Ramadan has the same effect on Jakarta that Christmas does on the US; or July does to Arizona: everyone leaves or stays home. Seeing so much traffic surprised me. Then I saw the puddles. Huge puddles in the middle of the street. There had been no rain in the two hours I had been awake, so this was left over from whatever happened overnight.

I arrived to the office a little before 8 AM and the place was mostly empty. Because most of the office is up by 3:30 AM to eat before they start their fast, seeing an empty office this early was a bit of a surprise. I even checked my watch to make sure I had not come in an hour early. Then I found out that the overnight rain had lasted three solid hours. This isn't common for Jakarta, and there was flooding everywhere. Not the destructive flooding you see in the Midwest, or every hurricane in New Orleans. More like flooding where the streets become rivers and your feet get wet on the petals because there is water in your car.

Today I did not have scheduled meetings. The team is finalizing the design documentation so I was available for questions, but spent most of my day researching outstanding issues from our prior project and developing a plan to resolve all of them.

Tonight, I realized how difficult it is to be an American with food allergies in Jakarta. I've had to get very good at recognizing by name and by sight what food is safe for me to eat. I went to the club for dinner, and found the only main dish they had was chicken. Not really in the mood for salad, mashed potatoes and sauteed vegetables, I went down at ate in the buffet. Really nice restaurant, but, per usual, almost everything was fish or poultry. I ended up finding some plain steamed rice with lamb baklava.

The other culinary realization I had today is that I really like the juice varieties here. I commented on my prior trips how it was nice to have mango and guava juice again. Today I tried strawberry juice. Keep in mind then when you ask for juice out here, it doesn't come from a bottle or a can. They make it fresh. They take the fruit you requested, put it in a blender with some ice and that is your juice. Strawberry juice is my new favorite.